Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Or, should you know of those scourges of the sea by a different name, International Talk Like a Buccaneer Day. There have been lots of different words throughout history synonymous with pirates, and here’s a little bit about their origins. Or rather, arrrrrr-igins. Buccaneer Pirates, as the […]
A lot of cheeses are named after their points of origin—Cheddar, Roquefort, and Colby are named after places in England, France, and Wisconsin, respectively. Other cheese names are a bit more complicated. Cottage Cheese It’s the most familiar and commonly consumed form of cheese curds (at least in the United States). What are curds? Coagulated […]
Not every video game can thrill gamers and sell millions. Here are some titles that hit the “Game Over” screen entirely too quickly. Pac-Man How can the most famous and popular video games of all time land on a list of flops? Because of the limitations of technology in 1982. In the very early 1980s, […]
Here’s the tale of how humans came to eat bears—tiny, adorable, rainbow-colored Gummy Bears, that is. Origin story Not too long after the end of World War I in the early 1920s, a 27-year-old candy factory worker from Bonn, Germany, named Hans Riegel decided to quit his job and go into business for himself. He […]
Last week, Hollywood news outlets reported that Henry Cavill might be done playing Superman on the big screen, as he’s been doing since 2013 in films like Man of Steel, Justice League, and Batman vs. Superman. It remains to be seen who will next wear the cape…and who will have almost become the Man of […]
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon lost her bid to become the next governor of New York, losing in a primary to incumbent Andrew Cuomo. She’s certainly not the first well-known actor to ever run for office. Shirley Temple Her heyday was the 1930s, but Shirley Temple arguably remains the most famous (and beloved) […]
September 15 was Batman Day, so we thought we’d take a look at some of the more bizarre and head-shaking moments in the long comic and cinematic history of The Caped Crusader, a.k.a. The Dark Knight, a.k.a. The World’s Greatest Detective, a.k.a. (spoiler alert) Bruce Wayne. What a bear! In a 1977 Batman comic book, […]
What do you do with all your empty toilet paper rolls? Instead of putting them into the recycling bin, turn them into fun craft creations with The Toilet Roll Activity Book. With step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations for more than two dozen projects suitable for all ages, this book will help you turn those plain cardboard […]
They’re terms we all use every day—so we thought we’d look into why people talk about the “time” and why they look it up on “clocks” and watches.” Time Proto-Indo-European is the common ancestral language of most European languages, and it had a word dimon, which meant “to divide.” Dimon to a form of time […]
Is there a golfer in your life? Then you know that the one things golfers love more than golf are silly golf gadgets and weird golf stuff. (Oh, and ugly plaid pants. Golfers, love those, too.) Potty Putter We don’t want to encourage doing anything to pass the time in the bathroom other that reading […]
It’s almost “awards season,” when every branch of the entertainment history holds lavish, televised parties to give one another trophies to recognize greatness. While Grammys, Emmys, and Oscars are voted on by a winner’s peers, there are some ways to game the system…just like these people did. Who is Al Walser? The 2013 Grammy Nominations […]
No, that didn’t really happen. The All-American king of ‘70s cinema and guys with mustaches, Burt Reynolds, passed away this week at the age of 82. He starred in plenty of classic movies, including Deliverance, The Longest Yard, and, of course, Smokey and the Bandit. But as much as Hollywood would have liked him to, […]
Don’t you hate it when you don’t get around to seeing the hot new Hollywood movie for a couple of weeks…and then a friend lets slip how it ends? It’s very aggravating. It’s perplexing then that some movies gave away their endings before they were even released. ROCKY IV Rocky IV is yet another Sylvester […]
There are a lot of reasons to drink non-alcoholic beer—mostly because regular beer has alcohol in it, and lots of people don’t want to drink alcohol for personal, health, or religious reasons. Here’s how they make the beer without the booze. It starts out the same. Breweries start making non-alcoholic beer in exactly the same […]
The history of TV shows doesn’t start with the 1950s—that’s just when most Americans got their first TV set. Over in England, and in small and experimental broadcasts in the U.S, television was on in the air in the 1930s. Here are some of the first (and oddest) TV shows ever, long before I Love […]
Hey, just because he makes books for the throne room doesn’t mean Uncle John can’t also have a highbrow side. For instance, he loves dressing up in his fanciest leopard-print tuxedo and taking Mrs. Uncle John out for a night at the opera…even if it’s one of these really weird operas. A Brief History of […]
Just over 30 years after its debut on Nickelodeon, Double Dare has returned to TV. It was a dream for a generation of kids to win cash and prizes with the show’s messy “physical challenges” and sloppy “obstacle course.” Here’s a look into the old-school TV phenomenon. Show origins Seeing toy companies make millions of off […]
Best known by the brand name “Pop Rocks,” popping candy fizzle and sizzle on the tongue thanks to a little science. Here’s how the candy wizards make them. Step #1: First of all, apart from its minor explosive capabilities, popping candy rocks are merely just little pebble versions of a fruit-flavored hard candy—they’re pebble-sized versions […]
